Medium or Naw? (Pt 1)

What comes after life? What comes once our shells of meat expire on this plane? Well hell if I know, but these last several months have made me wonder. I should preface this by saying a few things. I am not religious. I am not sure if I believe in God, though I do know a couple things.

One thing I know is that my skepticism in religion is more so from the corruption of it by man. Man/humans in general tend to be pretty trash at keeping a story straight. For example Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, all I'm sure were pretty kick ass guys; who ushered in great ideas and followings.

Though the thing is most of what we know about them is from word of mouth; written over thousands of years. Like a giant game of telephone. Thus is my dilemma, the word of God tainted by the input of man. One does not have to look far to see how views have changed over the centuries. Adultery punishable by death. Then you have passages such as this: “slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” Ephesians 6:5 NLT. That's a fun one, (sarcasm.)

Another interesting verse: "do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." Leviticus 19:19. Whoops, I feel everyone on earth is guilty there.

Of course there is also the genocide, corruption and heinous crimes of the catholic church that have taken place over time. There are even books that were removed from the bible all together by those in power who deemed it necessary at the time.

However, despite this skepticism of mine I feel there is something. I feel there is an energy at the least; that we are made of and that we interact with. The force…Just kidding, maybe?

In all seriousness one thing I take from the bible is that we are all made from God. What is everything in the universe made of? Matter and energy. So maybe God is the alpha if you will, of this energy that we all stem from. Anyways I digress. This isn't about religion. Well okay it kind of is, I guess. The experiences I am about to explain more so deal with what comes after we pass. After our bones turn to dust, and our names fade from memory.

The first instance of potential supernatural activity takes place in the early-mid summer of 2020. We are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and my girlfriend Arikka and I are house hunting. Now if you went house hunting during this period you know how CRAZY it was. Not solely due to COVID, but also due to the explosive sellers market it was at the time. There were several houses where we bid on 20-30k over the asking price. Then someone would come along and outbid us by thousands and pay in CASH. This sets the stage for my first experience or part one.

Among the sea of houses for sale online, an older brick house had caught our eye. Aside from having good bones, as the people who know what they are talking about houses say. It had a pool. Secondly er thirdly, the house had an awesome circular hobbit style door! Arikka and I are uber nerds, and with that Lord of The Rings fans. Naturally this was a huge selling point to us.

How things ended up was Arikka and my brother Todd went to the open house the first day to look at it. I couldn't make it to this one because of having to work. Though a few days later I would make it to the next open house with Arikka. Overall she had told me it was nice, needed some work, and wasn't sure about it. Needless to say I wanted to have a look for myself. I mean pool and hobbit door right?

So there we were inspecting the house, doing random house hunter things. Pulling open drawers, opening closets, ect. I recall it was a very humid day as well, and I had worked up a nice sweat aimlessly checking out the house. We moved to explore the upstairs. Arikka suddenly stopped to warn me of something.

“So just to give you a heads up. When Todd and I were going up stairs we got the shit scared out of us.”

“By what?” I asked.

“At the top of the stairs was this.” Arikka showed me a photo on her phone. In the picture there was a creepy ass doll sitting in a chair, peaking around the corner of the doorway.

“Your brother literally jumped from it.” She said laughing.

We continued up the stairs. As you went up the stairs step by step, the doorway of the doll room would come into view in front of you.

I prepared myself for Anabelle waiting there for me. Though as the room came into view with the same chair, there was no doll sitting in it.

Arikka seemed relieved, “someone must've moved it.”

“Yeah prolly not a good look for people trying to buy the house.” I jested

So next we went to check out the guest bedroom. Up to that point there had been nothing that would lead me to believe the house was haunted, or different in any way. I liked the house despite there being a lot of things that needed updating.

Again we were in the room doing house hunter things checking every nook and cranny. I then went to open up the closet door. I twisted the rusted bronze knob and pulled to no avail. I deduced I had to pull a little harder to open it which I did. As soon as I forced the door open I felt it. It was as if an invisible wave had come over me. The hairs on my neck, and my entire body for that matter stood up. I shook with shivers and goosebumps despite the humidity and sweat that coated my skin. As I was processing this random strange feeling I remember clearly saying out loud to myself,

“Woah.”

I looked around the corner of the door to find only shadows. Though despite the empty closet I felt something, I still do as I write this now. I felt some presence, or as cliche’ as it sounds I felt like I was being watched. I slowly closed the door and literally shook it off trying to continue the tour.

We continued to the basement. Which was finished, though it had a sort of awkward setup. At the bottom of the stairs was the living room. From the living room there were matching hallways going opposite directions. This continued in a circular design where if you followed either of the hallways you would go around the entire basement. The first passage led to a small yet charming guest bedroom. From the guest bedroom there was another hallway that led back to the living room.

However on the way to the living room there was a random space in between. Compared to the rest of the basement it didn't seem updated or make much sense for that matter. There was a wooden workbench with a wooden chair pulled up to it. The thing that stuck out to me was the mesh wall that separated the workspace from the rest of the hallway, and living room. The material was exactly like the mesh that you would find in a confession booth. Which, I'm no interior designer, but this was hella weird to me.

Given the randomness of the setup I was pulled by some unseen force to go look this spot over. Before I could get to the work bench it was as if I walked into a wall. The same feeling that hit me when I opened the closet door was here too. As before, the shivers instantly hit me, hairs shot up. Though this time it was different, it wasn't that I just felt a presence, it felt distinctly like I wasn't wanted there. I didn't belong. The air itself seemed to oppress my being. So I can take a hint pretty well, and I walked away with some pep in my step. Unfortunately for me Arikka is much slower at inspecting rooms than me, despite the fact she's already looked at the house! So I had to meet up with her and walk by the spot again. I met her halfway,

“You ready?” I asked her,

“Yeah let's check out the pool and head out.”

As we prepared to pass the weird-creepy confession workbench I expected to see something. I felt a anchor of dread in my stomach as we approached. I would come around the corner to a zombified priest there waiting. Worms writhing from his chest cavity squishing onto the floor, as his skeletal hand reached for me to confess my final sins.

Thankfully, when we came around the corner there was none of that, no zombie priest. Despite no one being there, the feeling hung over that place like a haze; waiting. I eyed down the spot, in a way I felt it was calling to me. Arikka commented on my exact prior thoughts,

“yeah this part is kinda weird, and doesn't really make sense.”

I don't remember if I answered back because I was ready to go; and this was basically a year ago. After checking out the pool, we went right to my 2008 Jeep Patriot, cutting on the air conditioning instantly. We started talking about our likes and dislikes with the house.

I remember struggling to explain what I felt.

“So that house was cool. Def needs a lot of work and has potential… But..”

”But I feel like that bitch might be haunted.” Almost before I finished my sentence,

Arikka nodded her head, “Yeah, I felt it too. Your brother even said it was creepy."

With that I didn't hold back.

“Yeah I don't know what it was but, upstairs when we were looking at the guest bedroom I felt something in the closet, like I literally said woah when I opened the door; and then it was there in the weird space downstairs too. I mean it just felt like something was there. I don't know. Like an energy”

her ambrosia eyes widened, "I wanted to tell you! It was creepy as fuck, but I wanted you to see it first."

With that we drove off, letting the windows down to let some of the wet summer air out. Needless to say we did not put an offer on that house.

So was it truly something? Again shit if I know. Though I have to wonder why in the world I would feel such things. I was just going along inspecting a house and boom my fight or flight instinct kicks in. I am a skeptic after all so to counteract my story I have a thought to include. I've read somewhere that sometimes older electrical equipment gives off energy that can make people feel that uneasy feeling, or what's described as a fight or flight feeling. Which could make a lot of sense since it was an older house. So I cannot say anything for certain besides what I felt. Maybe it was real, maybe not, maybe we dodged a bullet with that house! I'm thinking that one is not a maybe. Fortunately, we did end up finding a house a month or so later. In a perfect little neighborhood. I have to say this wouldn't be the first time or the last time that I've felt something like this (hence the title having part one, wink wink.) Still it begs to question.. Am I a medium or naw?